





J&¥i 



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.C616 
Copy 1 



APPEAL 



OF 



CASSIUS M. CLAY 



TO 



KENTUCKY AND THE WORLD. 



" BOSTON: 

J. M. MACOMBER & E. L. PRATT, 

No. 22 Court Street. 

1645. 



S. N. DicKiN-goN & Co. Pbintkr*. 
BOSTON. 






> 



APPEAL OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 



They who on the eighteenth day of August, 1845, rose 
in arms, overpowered the civil authorities, and estabhshed 
an irresponsible despotism upon the constitutional liber- 
ties of this Commonwealth, in justification of their con- 
duct, "appeal to Kentucky and to the world." So be it. 
Let Kentucky and the world judge. 

When the public peace is disturbed — when the laws 
are defied — when the Constitution is overthrown, — and 
when, by the avowal of murderous purposes, natural right 
and divine justice are impiously violated: — not the loss 
of property — not the individual wrong and suffering — not 
even the shedding of blood, are to be weighed a mo- 
ment : but the great principles of liberty only are to be 
borne in mind; whilst individuals, however high or low, 
are to be forgotten. If it shall turn out that these prin- 
ciples were by me violated or endangered, — then was it 
right that my house should have been rudely entered by 
personal enemies, threatening me with the dread alter- 
native of death or dishonor, — then was it right that the 
sick chamber should not wake, in the bosoms of the stern 
vindicators of the law, some feeling of pitying sympathy 
or magnanimous forl)earance, — then was 5t right that my 
wife and chiklren should, for long days and nights, suffer 
the terrors of impending ruin, — then was it right that I 
should have my property confiscated, — then was it right 
that I should be outlawed and exiled, from the land of 
my birth, and the buried ashes of my own loved blood 
and ever-cherished friends. But if, on the other hand. 



5 



they, and not I, have done this deed, — then let me he re- 
stored to tlie confidence of my countrymen — to the secu- 
rity of the laws — to the inviolate sanctity of the home of 
my native land, — and let them be consigned, not to a fel- 
on's fate, which is their due by the Constitution and laws 
of Kentucky, — but live out their days with the reflection 
that the most they can hope for in the future, is, that 
their dishonored names will be swallowed up in the mag- 
nanimous forgetfulness of coming generations. 

In the spring of 1845 I, in connection with some other 
Kentuckians, made proposals to publish a paper devoted 
to free discussion and rrradual emancipation in Kentucky. 
On the third day of June of the same year, the True 
American was issued from the press : having about three 
hundred subscribers in this State, and about seventeen 
hundred in the other states. On the twelfth day of Au- 
gust, 1845, the last number of this paper was sent to 
about seven hundred subscribers in Kentucky, and about 
twenty-seven hundred of the other states of the Union. 
These facts are verified by the books of tlie office, which 
friend or foe is at liberty to examine. That my readers 
in Kentucky should have run up, in this short space of 
about two months, from three to seven hundred, in the 
face of all the violence and proscription of the enemies 
of emancipation, voluntarily, without any agencies, and 
without the distribution of circulars or papers on my 
part, is a most extraordinary circumstance. And when 
we reflect that about twenty persons read the paper of 
each subscriber, making fourteen thousand readers in 
Kentucky, it proves beyond all controversy that the prin- 
ciples and tone of my press were taking a powerful hold 
upon the minds and affections of the people. 

The Democratic papers were comparatively silent. 
The Whig press was largely in my favor. The Christian 
Intelligencer s^n raised also the standard of emancipa- 
tion. The people of Louisville had taken the initiatory 
step for starting a similar paper there. A Democratic 
print of tlie Green river section, the most pro-slavery part 
of the State, had copied an article from the True Amer- 
ican, showing the ruinous competition of slave labor with 
that of the whites, and seemed ready to wage a common 
war. For the first time since the formation of the Con- 



stitution of the State, was a political party or;5anized for 
the overthrow of slavery in a legal way ; and in the most 
populous city in the commonweallh a candidate was an- 
nounced, ready to fight the battle upon the stuinp. A 
convention of the friends of emancipation was proposed 
to be held on the fourth day of July, 1846, and met the 
approval of many able and patriotic citizens. The prin- 
cipal movers in this cause were slaveholders ; so also 
were a majority of the readers of the True American ; 
and the great mass of laborers, who are not habitual 
readers of newspapers, began to hear — to consider — and 
to learn their rights, and were preparing to maintain them ; 
so that all things moving steadily towards the same glo- 
rious end, proclaimed, that Kentucky must be free. 

Previous to the issuing of the ninth number of the 
True American, I was taken sick with the Typhoid fever. 
A few friends edited tht pa[)er till the eleventh number 
was in press, in which was a leading article written by a 
slaveholder, and the (bllowing editorial written by my- 
self: 

" We are called once more to our hard and responsible task, 
from a bed of long and painful illness. The inquiry has been 
frequently made, we are told, whether we were living or dead, 
with ho])es for the worst in the bosoms of some : we are proud 
to say that the man doe.s not jive, whom we wotild, if we could 
effect it by the mere exertion of the will, cause one moment's 
pain; far less compass in desire his death. To freemen, ihe 
disgiace attending our misconduct is, in my opinion, the most 
urgent necessity. 'Is Philip dead?' ' No, but in great danger.' 
How are you concerned in these rumors? Suppose he should 
meet some fatal stroke: you would soon raise up another Philip, 
if your interests are thus regarded.' It is the weakness and dis- 
ease in ihe State that has forced us into our present position : 
and if we should perish, the same causes would raise up many 
more, and abler than we, to vindicate the same cause. 

We had hoped to see on this continent the great axiom that 
man is capable of self-government amply vindicated : we had 
no objections to the peaceable and honorable extension of em- 
pire over the whole continent, if equal freedom expanded with 
the bounds of the nation : gladly would we have seen untold 
millions of freemen, enjoying liberty of conscience and pursuit, 
of resting under their own vine and fig tree with none to make 
them afraid, standing upon a sacred and inviolate constitution at 
home, and just towards all nations; — such was the vigion of the 
I* 



immortal Washington, and such was ours. But we are told, the 
enunciation of the great and s'bul-stiriing principles of Revolu- 
tionary patriots was a lie, — as a dog returns to his vomit we are 
to go back to the foul and cast-oft' rags of European tyranny to 
hide our nakedness; slavery, the most unmitigated, the lowest, 
basest that the world has seen, is to be substituted forever for our 
better, more glorious, holier aspirations, — the constitution is torn 
and trampled under foot, justice and good faith in a nation are 
derided, brute force is substituted in the place of high moral 
tone: all the great principles of national liberty, which we in- 
herited from our British ancestry, are yielded up, — and we are 
left without God or hope in the world. When the great hearted 
of our land weep, and the man of reflection maddens in the 
contemplation of our national apostacy, there are men pursuing 
gain and pleasure, who smile with contempt and indiflerence at 
their appeals. But remember — you who dwell in marblw pal- 
aces — that there are strotig arms, and fiery hearts, and iron pikes 
in the streets, and panes of glass only between them and the 
silver plate on the board, and the smooth skinned woman on ths 
ottoman. When you have mocked at virtue, denied the agency 
of God in the affairs of men, and made rapine your honied faith : 
tremble ! for the day of retribution is at hand — and the masses 
■will be avenged." 

After I had written this, a ride to the office caused a 
relapse. Whilst I lay prostrate with disease, it was told 
me, a few minutes before 3 o'clock, of the fourteenth day 
of August, that there was to be held, at that hour, a meet- 
ing of the citizens at the Court House, in Lexington, for 
the purpose of suppressing the True American. I im- 
mediately rose and dressed myself; and in opi)osition to 
the remonstrances of my family, and at the risk of my 
life from the exertion, I determined to confront my ene- 
mies face to face, and vindicate my cause at_all hazards. 
At the Court House I found about thirty individuals, in- 
cluding a few who came in after I left ; their names 
were taken down by a couple of friends, and are now in 
my possession. All these men had grown from political 
opponents to personal enemies, because of my devotion 
to the Whig cause, except two, "a Whig" and "Junius," 
who were influenced no doubt by feelings of revenge, on 
account of the casligation which I had given them, in the 
first number of the True American, for their menace of 
the murderous infliction of Lynch law. After a silence 
of about half an hour, E. Q. Sayre said, he would speak 



out just the same as if I was not present ; he was for 
suppressing the True American as liljellous, by legal 
means. Henry Johnson, a cotton planter, and the brother 
of R. M. Johnson, said he understood this meeting was 
to have been equally composed of Whigs and Demo- 
crats, and for one he would take no action concerning 
this Abolition press, unless the Whigs came up boldly 
and shared the responsibility. Thos. F. Marshall, the 
apostate Whig, and late hybrid candidate for Congress, 
said he understood this to be a public meeting, and was 
here by an invitation ; he held the True American in his 
hand, and would read what he conceived to be the cause 
of the public excitement. He then read the article writ- 
ten by me and took his seat. 

Uf) to this period no Whig had made his appearance. 
D. M. Craig now made his entrance; he was a Whig; 
but the supposed author of "a Whig," as before stated. 
He was in a most lachrymose mood, — avowing himself 
my personal friend, — but at the same time his determina- 
tion to use his musket against my life, — he said this was 
a private meeting, and in this he was clamorously sec- 
onded by the whole mass. During all this time I lay 
upon a bench, only at intervals being able to sit up. I 
said I was far from intruding myself upon any set of 
men, — that I had understood this was a public meeting — 
I threw myself upon their magnnniniity — I acknowledged 
I was in the midst of enemies, yet trusted I would be al- 
lowed to ex[)lain the article read by Mr. Marshall, which 
from his few comments I foimd was utterly misconceived, 
and tortured from its true meaning. I was promptly re- 
fused a hearing Faint, and with lips parched, I turned 
-to T. F. Marshall, as the most chivalric of my enemies 
— a man whom I had met but a few months before in 
this same Court House, in the presence of an impartial 
audience of ray countrymen, and driven to the walls, 
' upon this same subject of the liberties of men — a man 
from whom I had extorted an open avoAval, " that he had 
(putting his hand to his heart,) the most profound respect 
for the gentleman and his ojnnions and argxinients, so new, and 
strong, as to demand his more deliberate consideration" — 
Who coldly replied : " That he had no more power here 



8 

than I, being a single individual." I then protested 
against his construction of my writings, and retired. 

Exhausted by this effort I returned once more to my 
bed. But feeling the necessity of meeting the vindictive 
machinations of my enemies, I dictated a handbill to the 
people (No. 1,) which was taken down by my wife, ex- 
plaining the offensive editorial, and asking a suspension 
of public opinion and action, till my health would allow 
me to be heard.* 

I had hardly got through with this when my chamber 
was entered by T. H. Waters, my 2:)ersonal enemy, with 
the following letter: 

Lexington, 14th Aug. 1845. 
Cassius M. Clay, Esq. 

Sir : — We, the undersigned, have been appointed as a com- 
mittee upon tlie part of a number of the respectable citizens of 
the City of Lexington to correspond with you, under the following 
resolution. 

Resolved^ That a Committee of three be appointed to wait upon 
Cassius M. Clay, Editor of the " True American," and request 
him to discontinue the publication of the paper called the " True 
American," as iis further continuance, in our judgment, is danger- 
ous to the peace of our community, and to the safety of our homes 
and families. 

In pursuance of the above, we hereby request you to discon- 
tinue your paper, and would seek to impress upon you the im- 
portance of your acquiescence. Your paper is agitating and ex- 
citing our community to an extent of which you can scarcely be 
aware. We do not approach you in the f^rm of a threat. But 
we owe it to you lo state, that in our judgment, your own safety, 
as well as the repose and peace of the community, are involved 
in your answer. We await your reply, in the hope that yonr own 
good sense and regard for the reasonable wishes of a community 
in which you have many connexions and friends, will induce you 
promptly to comply with our request. We are instructed to re- 
port your answer to a meeting, to-morrow evening, at three o'clock, 
and will expect it by two o'clock, P. M. of to-morrow. Respect- 
fully, &c. 

B. W. Dudley, 
Tho. H. Waters, 
John W. Hunt. 

* In this handbill T briefly narrate the circumstances of the meeting, as 
here stated. D. M Craig beings the onlv Whi? present, I supposed it a 
party affair, and so stated it. B. W Diuiley and G. W. Hunt had not tl^en 
csome in.whoare Whigs, but are said to- have Wen present after I left 
ther». 



I now saw that the union of which H. Johnson l)ad 
spoken, had been consummated, and that a portion of the 
Whig party, sure enough, were about to give me up as a 
sacrifice to the mahce of foes made by venturing my hfe 
in their cause.* Being determined to die in the defence 
of my birthriglit, the freedom of the press and the hberty 
of speech, I appended this short appeal to all true men 
and friends of law, and sent it to the press : 

[No. III.] 
Kentuckians : — 

You see this attempt of these tyrants, worse than the thirty 
despots who lorded it over the once free Athens, now to enslave 
you. Men who regard law — men who re<>ard all their liberties 
as not to be sacrificed to a single pecuniary interest, to say the 
least, of doubtful value — lovers of justice — enemies of blood — 
laborers of all classes — you for whom I have sacrificed so much, 
where will you be found when the battle between Liberty and 
Slavery is to be fought ? I cannot, I will not, I dare not question 
on which side you will be found. If you stand by me like men, 
our country shall yet be free ; but if you falter now. I perish with 
less regret when I remember that the people of my native State, 
of whom I have been so proud, and whom I have loved so 
much, are already slaves. 

Lexington, August 15, 1845. , C. M. Clay. 

1 immediately made preparations for the defence of my 
office, warned my chosen friends to be ready — to which 
they manfully assented — wrote my will, and next morn- 
ing sent my camp bed to the office, as I was unable to sit 
up. I had thus made every preparation to meet these 
men of chivalry, who on Monday ventured to hurl defiance 
at a prostrate foe. They had demanded of me to give 
them an answer, to discontinue my paper, or that after 
three o'clock on that day my " personal safety" was lost I 
Did they come up to their threats ? Not they. They 
found I was still able to drag my feeble body to the place 
of attack and rally around me many brave hearts. 

* The part wliich the Johnsons took in Wicklifle's and Brown's attempt 
to assassinate me, a few years ag'o, is g^enerally believed to liave arisen 
solely Irom political tnoiives of gettmar rid of a formidable opponent. The 
system they imported from Scou county, was to bully opponents in the can- 
vass or at the polls, and this pame they were bearinning- to play qnite suc- 
cessfully with the friends of Garrett Davis, lill the alliiir at Rassell's Cave 
taught them ttiat impunity would not await them. 



10 

With five hundred or more " unanimous" men in the 
Court House, on Friday, at three o'clock, they basely 
cowered, gav^e up all hope of a successful attack, put off 
the contest for three days, well knowing that before then, 
from the report of my physicians, I would be dead or un- 
able to head my friends. They abandon the secret con- 
clave and appeal to the j^uhlic. On Saturday, the inflam- 
matory piece, " A Kentuckian," made its appearance, and 
on the same day, they issued a long and lying handbill 
signed by the committee, to the " People of Lexington 
and county of Fayette." Yet they send this with runners 
and private letters to the adjoining counties, calling, in the 
printed bills, upon all the enemies of liberty, to rally to the 
" suppression of the True American," but writing on the 
backs of the same, " to Hell with Clay." Seeing that my 
handbills were relieving the public mind in this county 
and city, and giving way to their fears of being entirely 
thwarted in their murderous purposes, they issue another 
handbill, calling for help from the " adjoining counties," 
from the whole district where Marshall had but just 
finished a most bitter canvass, and where it was too well 
supposed that there would be many desperadoes ready 
for any deed. In theli- pamphlet they say this last hand- 
bill was authorized by the meeting of Friday, which is 
false. The resolution as reported by them, confines their 
call to " the people of Fayette and city of Lexington I" 

Finding that the " secret conclave of cowardly assassins" 
had backed out from their purpose of making my " per- 
sonal safety" " involved in my answer," and had appeal- 
ed to a public " constitutional" meeting, I told my friends 
to disarm the office, and leave it to the untrammeled de- 
cision of the citizens. 

I then wrote my plan of Emancipation, addressed to the 
people, (No. 4,) from which I make the following extracts : 

[No. IV.] . 
Althoii:_'h I regard slavery as opposed to natural right, / con- 
sider Imo and its inviolable observance, in all cases whatever, as the 
only safeguard of my own liberty and the liberty of others. I there- 
fore have not, and will not give my .'sanction to any mode of free- 
iiis: tlie slaves, which does not conform strictly to the Laws and 
Constitution of my State. And as I am satisfied that there is no 
power, under the present Constitution, by which slavery can be 



11 

reached, 1 go for a Convention. In a Convention, which is po- 
litically omnipotent, I would say that every female slave, born 
after a certain day and year, should be free at the age of twenty- 
one. This, in the course of time, would gradually, and at last, 
make our State truly free. I would further say, that, after the ex- 
piration of thirty years, more or less, the State would provide a 
fund, either from her own resources, from her portion in the Pub- 
lic Land, for the purchase of the existing generation of slaves, in 
order that the white laboring portion of our community might be 
as soon as possible freed Irom the ruinous competition of slave 
labor. The fund should be applied after this manner ; commis- 
Bioners should be appointed in each county, who shall on oath 
value all slaves that shall be voluntarily presented to them for 
that purpose. To the owners of these slaves shall be issued, by 
the proper authorities, scrip bearing interest at the rate of six per 
cent, to the amount of the value of their slaves, and to the re- 
demption of said scrip, this fund shall be applied, principal and 
interest. By this plan the present habits of our people would not 
be suddenly broken in upon, whilst, at the same time, we believe 
that it would bring slavery to almost utter extinction in our Slate 
"within the next thirty years. 

With regard to the free blacks, I would not go for forcible ex- 
pulsion, but I would encourage by all the pecuniary resources 
that the State had to spare, a voluntary emigration to such coun- 
tries and climates as nature seems particularly to have designed 
for them. 

With regard to the political equality of the blacks with the 
whites, 1 should oppose in Convention their admission to the 
right of suffrage. As minors, women, foreigners, denizens and 
divers other classes of mdividuals are, in all well regulated gov- 
ernrnents, forbidden the elective franchise, so I see no good rea- 
son why the blacks, until they become able to exercise the right 
to vote with proper discretion, should be admitted to the right of 
suffrage. " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." The time 
might come with succeeding generations when there would be 
no objection on the part of the whites, and none on the account 
of disqualification of the blacks, to their being admitted to the 
same political platform ; but let after generations act for them- 
selves. The idea of amalgamation and social equality resulting 
from emancipation, is proven by experience to be untrue and ab- 
surd. It may be said by some, what right would a Convention 
have to liberate the unborn? They who ask equity, the lawyers 
say, themselves must do equity, and whilst the slaveholders have 
rights, they must remember the blacks also have rights; and 
surely in the compromise which we have proposed between the 
slave and the slaveholder, the slaveholder has the 1 ion's share. 

On Sunday I replied to the committee's handbill of 



12 

Saturday, (in No. 5,) showing their falsehoods, and de- 
nouncing tliem, and appealing to the justice of the public 
at whose bar I intended to appear if possible. Late on 
Sunday night, finding myself still more than ever pros- 
trated, and despairing of being able to be present at the 
meeting on Monday, I dictated this last handbill, read the 
proof-sheets an hour after midnight, and had it circulated 
Monday morning, fearing that if it was put off to be read 
in manuscript it would be suppressed or unheard. 

(No. VI.) 

Lexington, August 18th, 1845. 

The Chairman of the Public Meeting assembled to-day will please 
lay before it the following communication : 

Fellow-citizens of Lexington, and County of Fayette. 
— Being unable from the state of my health, to be present at your 
meeting, and even unable to hold a pen, having been sick thirty- 
five days with the Typhoid fever, 1 dictate to an amanuensis, a 
few hnes for your consideration. Having been the unwilling 
cause, in part, of the present excitement in my county, and feel- 
ing, as I do, respect for the safety and happiness of others as 
well as my own, I voluntarily come forward and do all I con- 
scientiously can do for your quiet and satisfaction. I treated the 
communication from the private caucus with burning contempt, 
arising not only from their assuming over me a power which 
would make me a slave, but from a sense of the deep personal 
indignity with which their unheard-of assumptions were attempt- 
ed to be carried into execution. But to you — a far differently 
organized body and a constitutional assemblage of citizens — I 
feel that it is just and proper that I should answer at your bar ; 
and as I am not in a state of health to carry on an argument or 
vindicate properly my own rights, I shall, voluntarily, before any 
action is taken on your part, make such explanation as I deem 
just and proper. 

During my sickness, my paper has been conducted by some 
friends. The leading article in the last number, which I am told 
is the great cause of the public disquietude, I have never read, 
because at the time it was put to press, I could not have under- 
gone the fatigue of reading such a paper through. Although it 
was read over to me at the time, yet I am fully persuaded now, 
that had I have been in health it would not have been admitted 
into my columns. But I felt the less hesitancy in admitting it, 
because it has been my avowed policy heretofore to admit free 
discussion upon the subject of slavery, by slaveholders them- 
selves, and the author of this article is largely interested in that 



IS 

kind of property. You have seen before this time that the course 
of policy which I commenced, myself, to the State, is widely 
different, in many essential points, to this autlior's views. The 
article written by myself, and published in the same paper, was 
written a few days after the leader was in type, and, which has 
also been the cause of so much dissatisfaction, the justice of 
which, to some extent^ I am willing to acknowledge. I assure 
you upon the honor of a man, it was never intended to mean, or 
to bear the construction which my enemies have given it. I was 
pursuing the reflections of my own mind, without thinking of the 
misconstruction that could be put upon my language. 

Had I been in the vigor of health. I should liave avoided the 
objectionable e.xpressions, for by sharply guanling against the 
cavils of my opponents, I would best guard at the same time 
against any thing which could be considered of an incendiary 
character. 1 cannot say that the paper, from the beginning, has 
been conducted in the manner I could have wished. The cause 
of this it is not now necessary for me to mention. Satisfied, how- 
ever, from past e.xperience, that the free discussion of the sub- 
ject of slavery, is liable to many objections wiiich I did Tiot an- 
ticipate, and which followed in an e.xcess of liberality, arising no 
doubt from the fact that I had been denied the columns of the 
other presses of the country myself, I propose in future very ma- 
teriallv to restrict the latitude of discussion. I shall atlmit into 
my paper no article upon this snbject, for which I am not willing 
to be held responsible. This, you perceive, will very much nar- 
row the ground ; for my plan of emancipation which I put forth 
a few days ago, is of the most gradual character. My other 
views put forth there also, are such as I learn are not at all offen- 
sive to the great mass of our people. By this course, I expect to 
achieve two objects, to enable me to carry on the advocacy of 
those principles and measures which I deem of vital importance 
to our state, without molestation and without subjecting the people 
to the apprehensions and excitement which are now unhappily 
upon us. You may properly ask, perhaps, why was not this 
thing done before ? I reply that I did not foresee any such con- 
sequences as have resulted from a different course. The denun- 
ciations of the public press on both sides, I conceived, and am 
still of the same opinion, arose from the desire to make both parties 
political capital. And you will see also, when the excitement 
is worn off, that there have been many selfish purposes sought to 
be accomplished, at the e.xpense of your peace and mine, by men 
who are professing to be actuated by nothing but patriotic mo- 
tives. 

Having said thus much upon the conduct of my paper, I must 
say also, that my constitutional rights I will never abandon. I 
feel as deeply interested in this community, as any other man in 
in it. No man is, or has a connection, more deeply interested ia 



14 

the prosperity of this State, than myself. You ought not, you 
cannot, if you are just to me as you are to yourselves, ask me to 
do that which you would not do. I know not in reality, what 
may be the state of public feeling. I am told it is very much in- 
flamed ; I, therefore, directed my publisher, after the publication 
of to-morrow's paper, to exclude all matter upon the subject of 
Slavery, until, if my health is restored, I shall be able myself to 
take the helm. 

My office and dwelling are undefended, except by the laws of 
my country — to the sacred inviolability of which I confide my- 
self and property; and of these laws you are the sole guardians. 
You have the power to do as you please. You will so act, how- 
ever, I trust, that this day shall not be one accursed to our County 
and State. 

Your obedient servant, C. M. CLAY. 

Here, then, was as conciliatory an offer as any honor- 
able man could ask. I wrote just as I would have spoken, 
had I been present in a mixed audience, where a few 
were attempting to hurry on the many to thoughtless 
deeds of irrevocable infamy. Had I been personally se- 
vere, in the True American, on some citizen high in the 
confidence of the State, I but spoke the real sentiments 
of my heart when I regretted it. Had I, when worn down 
with disease, with no friend of similar views to stand by 
my bedside and give me counsel upon which I could im- 
plicitly rely, given utterance, incautiously, to language 
which might by any possibility be the cause of disaffec- 
tion among the slaves, I was willing to be more guarded 
in the future. Had I dangerously given, when incapable 
of judging, too much liberty to correspondents, who are 
not always the best qualified to know the effects of their 
reflections upon a community surrounded by a large slave 
population, I was willing for the future to sit in more re- 
strictive judgment upon the freedom and latitude of dis- 
cussion. All these concessions were freely, frankly, and 
in good faith, made to save my country's cause and mine. 
Kentuckians I Americans I was not this enough ? Oh I no, 
it was not the manner, but the thing — it was not the words, 
but actions, which they feared. They wanted me to say 
that I would cease the discussion of the subject of slavery, 
for well did they see, from a brief experience, that slavery 
and a free press could not live together. They wanted 
rae to abandon the exercise of my legal rights. Is any 



15 

man so base as to say I ought to have yielded ? No, my 
countrymen, remembering what State had given me birth, 
what I owed my country, what was due my suffering 
fellow- men, and my obligations to a just God, I replied 
in words which I supposed to be my last to man, " my 
Constitutional rights I shall never abandon!' But, horrible 
and fatal necessity I slavery knows not the language of 
remorse, and cannot indulge the undying instincts of 
generous magnanimity over a defenceless foe.* She had 
the decency to listen to my appeal, and I am told that 
tears stood in the eyes of many — yet the deed must be 
done, and with melancholy, yet firm despair, she bent her- 
self to the task — and the press fell! and Kentuckians 
ceased to be free I 

On the morning of the 18th of August, George R. Trot- 
ter, Judge of the city of Lexington, issued a legal process, 
enjoining the True American office and all its appurte- 
nances, and on demand I yielded up the keys to the city 
marshal. At 11 o'clock, on the same day, about twelve 
hundred persons assembled in the Court- House yard ; a 
Chairman and Secretary were appointed, a manifesto 
and resolutions were reported by T. F. Marshall, and 
adopted. A committee of sixty were appointed to take 
down the press and type, and send them to Cincinnati. 
The committee proceeded to the True American office, 
where the mayor of the city, (who by law has the whol^ 
militia of the city at his command,) James Logue, warned 
them that they were doing an illegal act, which he was 
bound to resist, but he was overpowered by superior 
force, and yielded up possession and the keys. After 
boxing up the press and type, and all the furniture of the 
office, and sending them to Cincinnati, they reported 
again to the meeting at the Court-House, at 3 o'clock; 
and after a speech from Thomas Metcalfe, disavowing all 
connection with abolitionism on the part of the Whigs of 
Kentucky, the meeting adjourned. 

Thus on the 16th day of August, 1845, were the consli- 

* Every one of these handbills was dictated by me to an amanuensis, 
whilst my hands and head were continually bathed with cold waler. to keep 
the fever down to a point below delirium. Every relative believed I would 
be murdered on Monday, and all but my wife and mother advised me to 
yield up the liberty of the press ; but I preferred rather to die. 



16 

tutional liberties of Kentucky overthrown, and an irre- 
sponsible despotism of slaveholding aristocracy estab- 
lislied on their ruins. They Avho did the deed, call it 
" dignified," and they supposed that its dignity would 
shield them from the indignation and curses of rnen. 
Did they ? No, they Avere not .so contemptibly silly as 
that. They found it necessary, in order to cover up the 
enormity of their crime — (murder, cool and premeditated, 
and only not consummated because no resistance was 
offered, according to their own admission — but in reality, 
because thcj^ found hundreds of brave men looking on in 
sullen silence, ready to die in my defence,) — to publish a 
manifesto to the world, full of darkly studied and damn- 
ing calumny, in order to shut me oft^ from the sympathies 
of men and abate the horror of their criminal avowal and 
dastardly revenge. 

They supposed, no donbt, that I would either fall by 
disease or violence; and, as "dead men tell no tales," it 
would be easy to blacken my memory, and cover up their 
own infamy. This last finishing touch was needed to 
complete the dark portrait of perpetual slavery — that 
mankind, looking upon this picture of slaveholding cruel- 
ty, wrong, and smooth-faced hypocrisy, might be no longer 
deceived forever ! 

In this manifesto, and indictment, and verdict, I am 
accused : 

1. Of being an abolitionist in its Southern sense — my 
northern visit is imputed to me as a crime — and I am de- 
clared returning home " the organ and agent of an incen- 
diary sect." 

2. I am accused of desiring to put into practical opera- 
tion the sentiments of the leading article of the True 
American of the 11th number, where I am spoken of as 
the very author of the same — " The Western apostle 
transcends if possible, his mission." 

3. It is imputed to me as a crime that I had prepared 
to defend my property and press against the illegal vio- 
lence of the people. 

4. I am accused of crime in characterizing American 
slavery as " the lowest, the basest, the most unmitigated 
the world has seen" — of being a "daring incendiary, hurl- 
ing his firebrands of murder and of lust" — of " responding 



17 

as a haughty and infuriated fanatic, in terms of outrage, 
to a committee of gentlemen, who made a wonderfully 
mdd request" — and of "denying the right of the citizens 
to consult together on such a subject" — of being a " mad- 
man," or of " preparing himself for a civil war, in which 
he expected the non-slave-holding laborers, along with 
the slaves, to flock to his standard" — in calling on the 
" laborers for whom I have sacrificed so much," of sum- 
moning slaves to my help. 

5. I am accused of " attacking the tenure of slave 
property" — C»f being " a trespasser" upon slaveholders — 
and of pushing the community to extremity. 

These are cruel charges, and most cruelly have they 
been avenged. Time was when men were heard, tried 
and punished, now being punished, may I yet be heard? 

With regard to the first allegation : I am so far an abo- 
litionist as certain men named George Washington and 
Thomas Jefferson, and some other such " fanatics," who 
got together in 1776, and enunciated some very "mad 
and incendiary" doctrines. I followed up the same Wash- 
ington, who, some years after that memorable event, de- 
clared that so far as liis vote could go towards the aboli- 
tion of slavery, it should never be wanting. The, same 
Washington, at some time subsequent, liberated all his 
slaves ; I was " fanatic" enough to follow his advice and 
example, and would have others do likewise, thinking it 
better to be just than rich. On the other hand, I am op- 
posed to the violation of law in any respect, either for the 
])urpose of liberating a slave, or of murdering by mobs a 
loyal citizen. I look upon the rebels of the 18th, who 
bore death and arms in their hands in order to perpetuate 
slavery, as infinitely lower in crime and infamy than the 
" incendiary sect," if suck there he, who would use similar 
ineans to liberate the slave. God forbid that I or my 
I'ountrymen should form an alliance with, or submit to 
the despotism of either. Neither the Liberty party nor 
the Garrisonians hold any such murderotis doctrines ; they 
are monopolized by the " respectable gentlemen" of the 
18th of August. The Garrisonian abolitionists are non- 
resistants; they hold, with O'Connell, that no revolution 
or change of government is worth a single drop of human 
blood. The Liberty party holds the doctrine put forth by 



18 

their convention, hold at Cincinnati on the llthdayof 
June, 1845. They say of slavery "we believe that its 
removal can be eii'ecied peaceably, constihtdona/ly, ^witho\^i 
real injury to any, Avith the greatest benefit to all." So 
that if I was an Abolitionist, in its broadest sense, there is 
no cause or excuse for any number of respectable gentle- 
men to come upon me and murder*me, or trample upon 
the constitutionyl liberty of speech and of the press. The 
Whigs call me a Whig — I wrote to the Abolitionists on 
the 1 1th of June, a letter published in the True American, 
w'here I call myself a Whig — the Abolitionists call me a 
Whig — and the Democrats call me a Whig ; I hold the 
principles c^ the Whigs. of '76, "eternal resistance to ty- 
rants" — and all the renegades, apostates and traitors in 
Kentucky shall not shake me from whatever measure I 
choose to advocate, or from whatever men ] choose to 
ally myself. 

When my visit to the North is imputed to me as a 
crime, and so voted by prominent Whigs of Kentucky, it 
is time that I should cease to suffer in reputation for their 
sakes and speak plainly to them and the nation. Time 
after time did I receive the most urgent invitations from 
Whigs of the North to come and aid the cause: yet as 
often did I refuse. I had a great work to perform, and 
did not wish to place my opponents on the vantage 
ground. For well did I know that whatever honors I 
might receive at the North would be construed by the 
enemies of emancipation in Kentucky into an alliance 
with abolitionism. 

When at las^, however, serious apprehensions began to 
be entertained that Texas would come into the Union, 
with its unequal representation, slavery, and national dis- 
honor, I felt it my duty to go, and give aid to the cause 
of my countiy, in whatever field of battle she called me. 
I w^ent by the advice of one of the central committee for 
the Whigs of Kentucky, — by special invitation from about 
fifty Whig clubs of the North — by the request before and 
after my departure of four hundred and sixteen committee 
men, representing clubs, counties and conventions — by 
the irresistible jiersuasion of fifty patriotic Whig women 
of Ohio — and last of all by the tacit apj^roval of the leader 
of the Whig party, Henry Clay. The day before I left 



19 

Lexington, I called upon Mr. Clay, and told him the pur- 
pose of my mission; that it was thought by our friends 
that I could have an influence, from my peculiar position, 
■with the anti-slavery, anti- Texas voters of the free States, 
which no other man could, and that I was willing to go if 
I could aid the Whig cause. Mr. Clay said nothing, but 
nodded his head with an approving smile ; and after some 
unimportant conversation he offered me letters of intro- 
duction, which I declined as unnecessary. Whether I 
accomplished any good there or not remains for others to 
say. It is enough for me to know, if I were vain enough 
to assume to myself consideration which belongs to the 
vital interests which were at stake in the canvass, that 
never did any man of my age in America draw together 
so large and intensely interesting audiences. The great- 
est intellect of the nation, the greatest orator of any age, 
said to me, " They had rather hear you than me." The 
most large-souled, vmcompromising man in the Union was 
pleased to compliment me : " We regard you as one of 
the pillars of the great temple of American liberty." I 
mention these things not with the silly vanity of self- 
elation, I knew them undeserved and the overliow of 
hearts touched with sympathy for a man who had sufl'ered 
proscription in the cause of justice and truth — for a man 
of proper feeling is less wounded by censure than unmer- 
ited compliment, and loves more to deserve praise than 
to receive it — but because much enmity and denimciation 
have been poured upon me here, charging me with being 
the cause of Mr. Clay's defeat, by my visit to the j\orth, 
and by forcing him into the. Gazette letter I 

" The Speed letter — aye, the Speed letter I" Well, 
then, if the whole truth must be told, the Whigs of New 
York are solely responsible for the effect of tliat letter, if 
any it had; they published it without my advice, and in 
opposition to my consent. The letter on its face shows it- 
self to be confidential and not intended for the public eye. 
I have by me Mr. Speed's letter, apologizing for the action 
of his friends in publishing it in his absence and without 
his consent, because of the eminent service it was thought 
it would render the cause. As soon as Mr. Clay's letter 
to the Kentucky Gazette was received by me, I immedi- 
ately sat down to a table and wrote to him that I was 



20 

grieved if I had misunderstood his sentiments, drawn as 
my opinion was from his whole history and repeated writ- 
ten declarations — that if he was not favorable to emanci- 
pation I regretted it on my own account, on his account, 
and on account of our common country. That I was de- 
voting myself unweariedly and honestly to the success of 
that party whose triumph was to result in his elevation, 
but \t lie conceived me doing any injury to ihe cause, that 
I would not again open my mouth in the canvass. His 
answer was that, stolen from Horace Greely, and pub- 
lished without my ever having seen it, by the Democracy 
of New York. During ray whole visit North, although I 
was cordially received by the anti-slavery men of all par- 
ties, I addressed but two abolition meetings : and then it 
was to defend the proposition of H. Clay and the slave- " 
holders, that " That is property which the law makes 
property." Everywhere among Abolitionists I made some 
enemies by defending this dogma, which now by the dis- 
regard of all law, avowed on the 18th, is of no more elfect, 
but null and void. Everywhere, among Abolitionists es- 
pecially, did I make enemies by defending Henry Clay. 
How then dare Henry Clay's son and Kentucky Whigs 
sit in solemn conclave and vote me to be " the organ and 
agent of an incendiary sect?" and under this pretext to 
rob me of my property, and threaten me with murder? 
To my brother Whigs throughout tlie Union I appeal 
from this ungrateful and calumnious accusation I 

The second charge, — holding me responsible for being 
about to enforce the sentiments of the author of the 
leader, in the lltli number of the True American, who is 
of their own brotherhood, not mine, being a slaveholder, 
when they had my own written opinions before them, 
utterly different in many essential respects, — is as false as 
it is impudent. Denied myself the use of the press of 
all parties, on my return from the north; criminally ac- 
cused in my absence, and not allowed to vindicate my- 
self, it would have been strange indeed if I had refused 
even a slaveholder a hearing, who uttered his thought.s 
boldly and honestly. My paper was intended to embody 
the differing opinions of all Kentuckians, and I said in 
the beginning that all the editorials would admit of very 
variant opinions without comment from me. In the same 



21 

number with this leader, I promised in my very next to 
give my " individual opinions " upon emancipation. But 
these they did not want to hear, for well they knew that 
they would give the He to all they had been saying about 
my abolitionism, for months and years. Have our mas- 
ters grown so fastidious that they cannot hear simple 
propositions — which are safe and peaceable — stated, with- 
out becoming mad with impotent rage? -For none of 
these "respectable gentlemen" have said that the leader 
was either unjust or %mtrue, or that it was incendiary. 
How then, even if I had endorsed it, could it have been 
imputed to me as a crime? 

in regard to the third allegation : it is indeed a strange 
state of civil society when the very basis upon which all 
associations of men are formed, is imputed to a man as 
a crime. If self defence, which is so much an axiom 
commanding the instinctive approbation of all men and 
times as to be known as the "first law of nature," has to 
be defended, I might as well quit the field in despair. 
But if it was not a virtue of the highest order," to resist 
mobs, which are violators of the peace, and in derogation 
of the dignity and safety of the commonwealth, I need 
but bring the National and State constitutions to my de- 
fence, which place the right of the citizen "to bear arms 
.in self-defence," beyond the power of legislation, higher 
and more sacred than the Constitution itself I was 
threatened with mobs by all the city papers, before I be- 
gan to publish the True American ; then, and not till 
then, did I prepare for defence Against partial mobs, 
emeutes, and black Indians, whether one or a thousand, 
I was prepared to defend myself; yes, against the "se- 
cret conclave of cowardly assassins" I prepared myself, 
and dared them to the onset; and as 1 anticipated in the 
beginning, by them I stood unharmed, only because I 
was defended. Born free and independent, with my 
name associated eternally with the commonwealth, whose 
honor and safety I was bound by the laws of God and 
nature to support, I did not come "secretly" sneaking as 
a traitor with bated breath, ■ic/mpertng treason and murder ; 
but glorN'ing in my birthright, I proudly spread my b'^n- 
ner, " God and Liberty," to the eyes of men, and vowed 
my determination to defend it or die. Bixt in that once 



22 

proud State, for whose best interests I was ever willing 
to risk my all, I never anticipated a total overthrow of the 
civil power ; for upon that, and the justice and magna- 
nimity of the great mass of my countrymen, I relied for 
security, after I had swept down, if necessary, thousands 
of traitors and murderers who were as much their ene- 
mies as mine. My office, if a fortified, was not a provi- 
sioned fort; so these men, not I, are mad, when they 
would represent me as warring against the whole com- 
munity. But let no man misunderstand me. Still in 
that case I would yield only to superior brute force ; if 
every man in the district was against me, I do not admit 
the right even of a whole community to do an illegal act. 
The case of invasion by a foreign power is not a parallel 
case — that is only not forbidden by law, but these men 
acted not only without the sanction of law, but against it, 
and in violation of its most sacred purposes, which are to 
guard the weak against the strong and many. No, my 
countrymen, there is no liberty here, if every man in this 
State should join to enslave the press, whilst the Consti- 
tution stands an eternal barrier to, and in stern condem- 
nation of the crime. 

In the fourth and principal charge, the editorial already 
given is urged against me. It is true that I spoke of 
slavery, as I felt and knew it to be. Whilst I admit now, 
and ever have, the humanity of many masters, and whilst 
I have never denounced slaveholders as a class, still 1 main- 
tain that American slavery, its system, its laws, and its 
possible abuses, make it " the lowest, the basest, and the 
most unmitigated the world has seen." The Jews had 
their jubilees; the Romans and Greeks admitted the 
freedman at once into the class of masters ; the Turk 
makes his slave his wife and admits her equality in the 
household; the Asiatic, and the African, and the Euro- 
pean slave fall not to the level of ours. For here color, 
and natural diiferences of structure and capacity, height- 
en the deformities of slavery, and increase its difficulties, 
its cruelties, and its dangers. On this question 1 spoke 
as one man to his equal — and who shall be my censors ? 
It can be offensive to none but the basely guilty ; if false, 
let it be proven I If true, let it be remedied. But as for 
mere clamor — I contemn it. " Go, show your slaves how 



23 

choleric you are, and make your bondmen tremble. Must 
I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and 
crouch under your testy humors? By the gods, you 
shall digest the venom of your spleen though it do split 
you." Impartial men must remember that this was writ- 
ten by a man just able to wield a pen, after a most dan- 
gerous and brain oppressing fever. It is the dreamy, ab- 
stract speculation of the invalid, purified by suffering, un- 
guarded and unsuspecting, because conscious of a high 
and elevated motive. It is not an invitation to evil, or a 
vicious gloating upon suffering foreseen, but the great 
yearning of a heart full of humanity, to save others from 
impending ruin. There are in it, I frankly admit, words 
which seem to look to a servile insurrection, and to name 
such an event is, as the author of " A Kentuckian" also 
ought to know, lo invite it. This I simixly regret, not on 
my »wn account, but on account of the cause which is 
more dear to me than life. My war is upon slavery, not 
upon slaveholders — I repeat once more. As no man in 
Kentucky had more to lose, so no man had more reason 
^than I to avoid even the suspicion of insurrection. All 
human probabilities conspire to sustain me, when I assert 
before heaven and earth that such a thought never en- 
tered my head. Come then, ye testy cavillers, I say the 
proposition is true, in its letter, and in its spirit, and in its 
broadest meaning I Yes, this much abused article but 
reiterates that virtue is the only secure basis for repuhlics.* 
Such has been the doctrine from Longinus, running down 
through all writers upon government till the final repeti- 
tion of it in Washington's Farewell Address to the Amer- 
ican people. The consciences of slaveholders bear tes- 
timony to its immortal truth, and neither calumny nor 
murder can eradicate it from the convictions of mankind. 
Need I maintain an argument to prove that slavery is 
subversive of virtue, and consequently dangerous to re- 
publics and death to liberty ? Go, listen to your Ham- 

* " Sene summa juititia, rempublicam geri nulla modo posse." — Cicero. 
" 1 must fairly tell you that so far as my principles are concerned, that I have 
no idea of liberty unconnected with virtue. Nor do I believe that any 
g'ood constitutions of government can find it necessary for their security to 
doom any part of the people to a permanent slavery." — Buhke. See Mon- 
tesquieu's d'Esprit des Sais ; Vatteirs Laws of Nations; Paley, etc. 
Passim. 



24 

monds, and let pulpit hypocrites stultify themselves and 
you, in discussing and refuting the language, reason, and 
the irrepressible axioms of the heart. Shall I contend 
that slavery is at war with the virtue and justice of this 
nation ? Behold our broken constitutions ; our violated 
laws; our tarnished faith; our wounded honor; our rapa- 
cious wars ; our plundering conquests ; our insulted am- 
bassadors ; our imprisoned citizens ; our robbed presses ; 
our murdered people ; and tell me if I be a "fanatic" 
when I say that slavery threatens all law, and our whole 
system of republicanism, the ruin of property and the 
loss of life. Whether then slavery stood by the avarice 
and selfishness of the farmer of Kentucky, the planter 
of Louisiana, the manufacturer of Lowell, the cotton 
merchant of New York, the pork dealer of Cincinnati, or 
the speculators upon slave labor all over the Union — I 
wished to appeal to ihe strongest motives of the human 
heart, the love of money and the adoration of women, to 
arouse them to its inevitable and disastrous consequences. 
Will any one of these men tell me the guards which 
they propose to thrust between the " silver on the board," 
and the daughters of wealth with hands unhardened by 
toil ; yes — the " smooth skinned woman on the ottoman," 
and the plundered poor, — the lawless, whose existence is 
pre-supposed by the very necessity of government at all? 
Come now, fastidious statesman I you who have had time 
to reflect, please tell me that I may in the future avoid 
your wrath, and my country escape this great woe I 
Shall it be by law ? That you have sacrificed to slavery ! 
Shall it be by a long instilled and sacred reverence for 
the Constitution? That you have trampled under foot! 
Shall it be by an appeal to a common interest between the 
rich and the poor, the only basis of republicanism ? You 
have separated the great mass of the American people from 
you by slavery, by studied contempt and the impassable 
barriers of ignorance and poverty ! You will appeal to a 
strong government and a king — will you ? Look back 
through history, and learn that no republic has passed 
into a monarchy, without long years of blood and anarchy, 
in which peri.sh property, men, women and children, and 
when are not spared the statues of dead men, or the 
temples of the living God I The last clause in the arti- 



25 

cle, which has been basely tortured into the present now, 
every sensible man will see is dependent upon the con- 
tingency, ivhen, Virtue is lost. It may be now, to morrow, 
next year, the next hundred years, and if virtue is never 
rooted out of the minds of the people, never ! 

Has it come to this, that I am to be drawn up and pub- 
licly censured, for speaking in plain and manly language 
to men, who order me to relinquish my birthright, or die. 
" Go, tyrants I I am not yet a slave." Are you men ? 
Kentuckians ! is not this shameful? Alas! have we so 
soon " lost the breed of noble bloods ?" 

It is not true that I " denied the right of the citizens 
to consult together on such, a subject." 

On the contrary, I did acknowledge their right, by my 
repeated appeals to them : not only to consult, — but to 
advise — to warn, — but then their office was at an end. 
They could, no more than a single person, go farther than 
the laws allowed. Had they confined themselves to this, 
much good would have resulted. There is a moral power 
in the proceedings and counsel of the assembled people 
in the public discharge of duty, when Avithin the bounds 
of law and justice, which no sensible man will disregard 
so long as principle be not violated. But when they 
transcend their power they sink into the dust, impotent 
and contemptible as the meanest faction, and all men will 
stand by me when I defy them, as I do now. Whether 
they will best accomplish their purpose by the course 
pursued, time will develope — and may God defend the 
right ! 

For whom " have I sacrificed so much ?" For the six 
hundred thousand free white laborers of Kentucky ! against 
whose every vital interest slavery wages an eternal and 
implacable war I For them I lost caste with the slave- 
holding aristocracy of the land I For them I liberated 
my slaves ! For them have I sacrificed all chance of po- 
litical elevation in my native State I For them have I 
lived — and for them have I stood ready to die ! They 
who have never eaten of my bread, and stabbed me 
in the dark; they, who have stood by me again and 
again, without hope of reward; they, whose children, 
gazing in my face with lovely eyes and reproachful con- 
fidence — seemed to say, " what are you as a legislator 
3 



26 

doing for us ? — shall we not be enabled to be fed and 
clothed as the children of slaveholders ? — shall we not 
have schoolhouses and churches, and be taught to know 
how to work to advantage ? — shall we not be so placed, 
as to be able to possess a small piece of land, or at all 
events, if we are manufacturers to sell our wares, or if 
we are mechanics, to find continual employment at fair 
wages ? — shall we not change our log cabins daubed with 
miud, and chilled by the winds of winter, into comfortable 
little cottages, with some evidences of taste in yards, of 
flowers and shrubs? — save us, we pray you, from neces- 
sary idleness, and dishonorable work — spare yourselves the 
expense of jails and penitentiaries, and rescue us from 
the chances of a felon's fate I" — yes, these are the men, 
the great majority of the people of Kentucky, Avhose in- 
terests in 1841 I swore I never would betray — for whom 
I then fell, and now suffer. How long, my countrymen, 
seeing you have the power of the ballot box, shall these 
things be ? Will you not at least be relieved from pre- 
judice, which poisons you with hatred and injustice to 
the blacks? Enslaved by passions which our masters 
cunningly infuse into us from our very cradle — will you 
never open your eyes and be free ? Will you not at least 
awake, arise, and be men? Then shall I be delivered 
from this outlawry, this impending ruin, this insufferable 
exile, this living death ! 

Not upon the slaves did I call. How could I? Is any 
man in Kentucky so base as to charge that I have held 
secret conference with the slaves ? No, not one I How 
then could I call upon the slaves, who could not read, 
one in a hundred ? With all my relations and kindred, 
slaveholders, many of them ministering in turn at my 
sick couch by day and by night; all to be involved in one 
common ruin ; warring one county against a whole State ; 
and I prostrate, and unable to raise my head, to call upon 
the slaves to rally to the standard of civil war ! I refrain 
from expressing the great indignation which such gross 
and monstrous calumny, cannot but generate in the cold- 
est bosom. Go, search my secret and public life from the 
cradle up, and tell the world by what steps I have grad- 
ually prepared myself for this last round of unmixed de- 
pravity I When have I stript the poor ; when played the 



27 

sycophant to the powerful ; where have I lied ; what 
party betrayed ; what friend deserted ; when have I stolen 
or robbed; "when did I counterfeit ; whom have I secretly 
injured ; in what penitentiaries have I served an appren- 
ticeship to crime ; whom have I secretly poisoned ; whom 
have I openly murdered ? Then, before this charge in 
the face of Kentucky, and the world, I stand mute I Poor 
and friendless ; broken in spirit and in hope ; outlawed 
and exiled though I be, there is something yet remaining, 
of what a man, a proud, just, honest man, should be, and 
I shall not stoop to plead not guilty, not here, nor now ! 

In the fifth and last count of this indictment, I am ac- 
cused of " attacking the tenure of the property of slave- 
holders" — of being a " trespasser on them" — and of " push- 
ing the community to extremity." Now I deny that I 
have ever attacked the legal tenure of slave property ; 
the justice of a law is one thing, its vahdity another. I 
call for proof. My writings for five years are before them 
and the world. I challenge them to the proof. They can 
never produce it. How then can I be a " tresspasser upon 
them ?" I have ever vindicated their legal right to their 
property; they have robbed me of mine'. They have 
taken more property from me than the average value of 
the slaves held by masters in Kentucky. If then their 
accusation were true and not false, perpetual silence should 
have sealed their lips ; the robber, if I be one, has been 
doubly robbed I 

I did not push the community to extremity. For in ad- 
dition to my other concessions I was willing to suspend 
the paper till my healtli was restored. No, by all that is 
sacred among men, it was not the community, but slavery, 
which I was pushing to extremity ! Those slaveholders 
who favored emancipation, cared not what I said of sla- 
very, as my subscription list proves ; those who did not 
and never did intend to favor it, I was not fool enough to 
attempt to persuade. If slavery never falls till it falls by 
the consent of slaveholders, it will never fall " in the tide 
of times." How many of all the monarchs of the world 
will any man of sense undertake to persuade to lay down 
the sceptre ? Governor Hammond, in speaking of " mo- 
ral suasion" addressed to slaveholders, tells but simple 
truth, when in writing to the venerable Thomas Clark- 



28 

son he says, " youknow it is mere nonsense." John Green, 
of Kentucky, one of the mildest, the best and most im- 
partial men that ever Hved, said in the Luminary, in 1836 : 
" It is but natural that a stranger in passing through our 
State, should take up such impressions, from the liberal 
tone in which our politicians and other intelligent men 
speak on the subject, so long as they are permitted to deal 
in generals, and to qualify their remarks by the important 
word IF. But if you call upon them to propose some plan 
and to commence action, they will almost universally draw 
back. I think I know something of our public men, and I 
tell you they are for doing nothing." Let me be no more 
then "damned with faint praise" that my motives are 
good, but that I am "rash and denunciatory." No, my 
countrymen, it is not words, but action, for which I am now 
outlawed. 

The slaveholders of the other counties have dropt the 
stale and shallow plea of incendiarism, and say that sla- 
very shall not be discussed. This is the only and true is- 
sue. This manifesto means it — though it was ashamed, 
to say it. Else why speak of its constitutional guaran- 
tees ? Now the United States Constitution leaves it fairly 
within the power of change. The Kentucky Constitu- 
tion, article 7, section 1, thus reads : " The General As- 
sembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emanci- 
pation of slaves, without the consent of their owners, or 
without paying their owners previous to such emancipa- 
tion a full equivalent in money for the slavey so emanci- 
pated." It is true, we of the emancipation party have 
never pressed this power, because we deemed it imprac- 
ticable in execution. Yet, here is a clause putting the 
whole question fairly within the field of discussion, because 
in the field of action — which relieves us of the necessity 
of claiming in our defence the constitutional rights and 
specific guarantees of the liberty of speech and the press. 

I say, then, that this last, and all these allegations 
against me, are false and calumnious, and fur my own jus- 
tification I " appeal to Kentucky and to the world." 

Having said this much upon this subject in connection 
with my own name, in order to develop its injustice and 
studied cruelty and determined wrong^I shall now con- 
sider it in its far more important bearing on the hberties 
of the State and the Nation. 



29 

Section 2, article 6, Kentucky Constitution, has this de- 
finition of treason : " Treason against the commonweahh 
shall consist only in levying war against, or in adhering to 
its enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Now here was 
a great party of men who rose up and declared themselves 
armed — " we are armed and resolved" — they go to the 
civil authorities, the Mayor and Marshal of the city of 
Lexington, officers of the commonwealth, who warn them 
that an illegal act is about to be perpetrated — and with 
arms and an overpowering force eject them and take pro- 
perty which was yielded up to the possession of the law. 
Not only do they fail to make restitution, but they avow 
their determination to continue their illegal action, and if 
necessary, to shed blood — to commit murder upon peace- 
able citizens. Now if this is not " levying war against the 
commonwealth," then is human language utterly incapa- 
ble of conveying any thing intelligible I It was a revolu- 
tion, bloodless only because no physical resistance was 
made, as they themselves avow. What is the common- 
wealth ? its officers? Asaiust them they levied war. — 
What is the commonwealth ? its constitution ? That they 
avowedly set aside as being incompetent to meet the 
case. What is the couunon wealth ? its laws? They pro- 
claimed that there was no legal power for their action — 
They put it down in writing' that there was usurped an 
original or revolutionary power. The assembly was call- 
ed in open day ; its president was a magistrate, a sworn 
conservator of the peace at other times — its action was 
deliberate and " dignified ; " its numbers were large ; 
and its force irresistible ; its end the suppression of the 
press and the constitution of the State ; and lastly, it sol- 
emnly appealed to the world in justificaliun of its pro- 
ceedings. If this be not a revolution, then never has one 
taken place in the history of men. No matter what may 
have been the provocation on my part ; even though I 
had been proven an insurrectionist; even though I had 
been caught applying the torch to dwellings of defence- 
less women and children ; even though I had been taken 
with hands red with the bloud of my fellow-citizens — 
still the character of this action is unchanged in the h ast 
respect. The press had passed from my possession — 
3* 



£0 

it was stopped by legal process ; whatever clanger it threat- 
ened, if any, was past; it had become inert matter, in- 
capable of moral or legal wrong ; and even if it had not, 
the commonwealth only was responsible for its influence, 
whether good or bad, upon the safety of the community, 
which these men affected to believe endangered, but of 
which, in reality, they themselves were the only enemies. 

On the fSth day of August then were the constitutional 
liberties of Kentucky forcibly overthrown, and an irres- 
ponsible oligarchy of slaveholders established on their 
ruins. 

They may allow Governor Owsley to retain his seat at 
the head of the executive department — they may permit 
the legislature to pass such laws as suit them — they may 
in a word suffer the forms and machinery of a free 
government to go on — but be assured, men of Kentucky, 
you are nevertheless slaves. 

Be assured that you live under an anarchial despotism. 
The same men who robbed me of my press, sat as a 
jury and justified the deed, and declared there was 
no offence against the laws I What care they who plot 
murder, for violated oaths ? The respectable slave-hold- 
ing mob of the 18th, sat in judgment upon the " ungentle- 
manly" mob of the I9lh, by arms and force, claiming for 
themselves alone supreme irresponsible power. The " ca- 
naille" of the 19th were drawn up before the courts and 
jninished — the respectable gentlemen of the 18th, beyond 
all human computation more guilty, went unwhipt of jus- 
tice ; surely the king can do no wrong I Whilst I speak 
there are now ordered some hundreds of armed men, by 
the Governor, into Clay county, to preserve what little 
remnant of civil authority and the old form of government, 
may yet remain. What will this come to? Where does 
it all lead ? It requires no prophetic eye to see blood flow- 
ing knee deep ere this damnable usurpation come to the 
still grave of unresisted and hopeless despotism. Did 
they say to Stevenson of Georgetown, print no more upon 
the subject of slavery? Has the Louisville Journal been 
silenced ? In Lincoln, and Jefferson, and Nelson, will a 
peaceable citizen be drawn from his bed at midnight and 
be hung*to a limb, or shot down like a dog in the day, if 
he venture to read oae-half of the newspapers of Arneri- 



31 

ca ? Are not these men mad ? Are they not spinning 
for themselves a web, which, Uke the shirt of Nessus, will, 
instead of^ protecting, involve them in utter ruin and de- 
spair? Who in South Carolina dare now discuss slavery ? 
Can Calhoun — can Hammond plead, if he would, for 
emancipation? Have they not raised a Devil which the 
combined intellect of the State cannot lay, though 4ef^t,h 
look them in the face, and the grave open beneath their 
feet? " JNIadmen and fanatics," would you place Ken- 
tucky in the same category ? Will you not allow us to be 
saved now while it is to-day — and whilst the evil years 
come not? 

By what tenure do you hold your slaves ? Is it by nat- 
ural right, or by the constitution? If the constitution be 
overthrown, is not the slave fre-e ? Will the other States 
return him into bondage ? Will they interfere to put 
down domestic violence, when by you all legal security 
is first destroyed ? When you avow yourselves mm-der- 
ers in purpose, will the North be thus cured of dangerous 
fanaticism ? Will not blood answer to blood, and the 
earth cry out unceasingly for vengeance ? Is not the lib- 
erty of the press the common concern of the whole Amer- 
ican peo[)le ? Can you plant your iron heel upon the ten 
millions of Northern Freemen? Are Bunker- Hill and 
Lexington ideal names, and do I dream when I find my- 
self planted upon a soil which was named in solemn 
dedication and remembrance of that land which was wet 
by the blood of thase who knew not how to be slaves, 
and live ? Can any people be free who voluntarily yield 
to illegal force a single right ? Do I not owe allegiance 
to the National Governuient — may she not call on me at 
any hour to lay down my life in her defence? Then does 
she not in turn owe me protection ? Can the sheep be 
safe when all the watch-dogs are slain ? Can the nation 
be free when all the presses are muzzled ? Have not the 
organs of two administrations made relentless war upon nie, 
a private individual? What is there in my person so terrible 
to the slave power? Is anything more terrible to tyrants 
than the liberty of the press? Will not emissaries from a 
slave-holding President do in the free States to-morrow 
what is done with impunity here to-day ? Do not the 
cries of the bloodhounds of national patronage, crying for 



32 

my blood as freely as the despots of the South, strike 
terror into the souls of Northern men? 

Can it be that the liberty of the press is so small a 
thing ? Know you not, Americans, that when the liberty 
of speech and of the press is lost, all is lost ? Heavens 
and earth ! must I argue this question with the dcscend- 
auis of Washington and Adams ? Well, then, Euripides 
said: " This is true liberty, where free-born men having 
to advise the public, may speak free." Said Chatham : 
" Sorry am J to hear liberty of speech in this house impu- 
ted as a crime ; it is a liberty I mean to exercise, no gen- 
tleman ought to be afraid to exercise it." John Milton : 
"And although all the winds of doctrine were let loose to 
play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do in- 
juriously, by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her 
strength. Let her and falsehood grapple. Who ever 
knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encoun- 
ter?" Daniel Webster, speaking of the freedom of opin- 
ion : " It may be silenced by military power, but cannot 
be conquered. It is elastic, irrepressible and invulnerable 
to the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that impassable, 
unextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitrary 
rule, which, like Milton's angels, 

* Vital in every part, 
Cannot, but by annihilating, die.' " 

Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is in vain for 
power to talk either of triumph or repose. Erskine : 
" The proposition I n^an to maintain, as the basis of the 
liberty of the press, and without which it is an empty 
sound, is this, that every man not intending to mislead, 
but seeking to enlighten others with what his own reason 
and conscience, however erroneously, have dictated to 
him as truth, may address himself to the universal reason 
of a whole nation, either upon the subject of governments 
in general, or upon that of our own particular country; 
that he may analyze the principles of the Constitution — 
point out its errors and defects — ea-amine and publish its cor- 
riqjtions — warn his fellow-citizens against their ruinous 
consequences, and exert his whole faculties in pointing 
out the most advantageous changes in establishments 



33 

which he considers radically defective, or sliding from 
their object by abuse." 

John Milton, again : " For this is not the liberty which 
we can hope, that no grievance should ever rise in the 
Commonwealth ; that let no man in this world expect ; 
but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered 
and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil 
liberty attained that wise men look for." 

Plutarch nobly says : " Without liberty there is nothing 
good, nothing worthy the desires of men " 

Rotteck : " Curse on his memory I The press is to 
words what the tongue is to thouglats. Who will con- 
strain the tongue to ask permission for the word it shall 
speak or forbid the soul to general thoughts ? What 
should be free and sacred if not the press ?" 

Benjamin Franklin : "Freedom of speech is the principal 
pillar of a free government : lohenthis support is taken aivay, 
the Constitution of free government is dissolved, and tyranny 
is erected on its ruins." 

Erskine : " It is because the liberty of the press re- 
solves itself into this great issue, that it has been in every 
country the last liberty which subjects have been able to 
wrest from the hands of power. Other liberties are held 
under government, but the liberty of opinion keeps gov- 
ernments themselves in due subjection to their duties. This 
has 2Jroduced the martyrdom of truth in every age, and the 
world has only been purged from igiiorance ivith the innocent 
blood of those xvho have enlightened it." 

James Mcintosh: "One asylum of free discussion is 
still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where 
man can exercise his reason on the most important con- 
cerns of society, where he can boldly publish his thoughts 
on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants." 

" The press of England is still free. It is guarded by 
the free constitution of our forefathers. It is gutirded 
by the heart and arms of Englishmen ; and I trust that I 
may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only 
under the ruins of the British Empire." 

Curran : "What then remains? The liberty of the 
press only; that sacred palladium which no inthience, no 
power, no minister, no government, wliich nothing but the 
depravity or folly of a jury can ever destroy. As the ad- 



34 

vocate of society, therefore, of peace,* of domestic liberty 
and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you 
to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the 
state, that grand detector of public imposture ; guard it, 
because when it sinks, then sinks with it, in one common 
grave, the liberty of the subject, and the security of the 
crown." 

Such are the opinions of some of the great and good of 
other times, which seem to burst from agonized souls 
amid tears and blood. 

But our fathers did not leave this basis of all liberty to 
the uncertain opinions of men. The United States Con- 
stitution, article 1, of A., says, " Congress shall make no 
law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." 
The Constitution of Kentucky, section 7, article 10, says: 
" The presses shall be free to every person who under- 
takes to examine the proceedings of the Legislative or 
any branch of government ; and no law shall ever be 
made to restrain the right thereof The free communica- 
tion of thoughts and opinions is one of the invulnerable 
rights of man; and every citizen may freely write, speak, 
or print, on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of 
that liberty." — Then I call upon William Owsley, Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky, to protect me in the constitutional re- 
estabiishraent of the liberty of the press. This is a case 
of domestic violence. If he has not power enough here 
in Kentucky, I demand of him, in the name of the spirjt 
of the 4th article of the Constitution, to call upon James 
K. Polk, President of the United States, to assist with all 
the power of the National arm, in vindicating the violated 
laws and a broken constitution. The liberty of the press 
is my inheritance. It is mine, by the common law of the 
land. Congress has no power to take it away, but to 
make it secure. I implore the American people to vindi- 
cate their birthright and mine. To the National govern- 
ment I owe allegiance, and in turn I claim of it protec- 
tion ; I demand of the Congress of the United States to 
pass suitable laws, by which the rebels of the l&th, if they 
attempt to redeem their pledge and renew their violence, 
may be brought to summary punishment, so that I be pro- 
tected in the liberty of speech and of the press. Yes, 
Americans, if you are not slaves, this thing will have to 



35 

be done. It is your cause and net^naine. Justice de- 
mands it — the constitution demands it — ye4^|own safety 
demands it — virtue and humanity demand it, — then in the 
name of God and Liberty let it be done. 

In the mean time, I stand here on my native land, for 
which my kindred have bled in every field of honorable 
achievement, one amidst a thousand, undismayed by the 
dangers and death, which like the plague with mysteri- 
ous and impassable terrors by day and night, hang over 
me and mine, trusting that my position may arouse in the 
bosoms of Americans an honorable shame and a magnan- 
imous remorse; that they may rise up in the omnipotency 
of the ballot cast by fifteen millions of freemen, and peace- 
ably overthrow the slave despotism of this nation ; and 
avoid the damning infamy which awaits them for all time 
in the judgment of the civilized world, if they leave me 
here to die ! 

To the liberty of my country and of mankind, then, I 
dedicate myself and those whom I hold yet more dear; 
and for the purity of my motives, and the patriotism of 
my life, the past and the future, I " appeal to Kentucky 
and to the world." 

C, M. CLAY. 

Lexington, Ky., Sept. 25, 1845. 



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